Global warming deniers to pow-wow in Washington

Oil-funded group wants to ‘restore scientific method’ to climate science

Climate change skeptics gather next week in Washington.

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — If it weren’t so dangerous, it would be funny. The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank funded by Exxon Mobil and Charles Koch, is once again rounding up its stable of climate change deniers for the sixth annual Conference on Climate Change (June 30, July 1) in Washington, D.C.

The group is literally playing with fire by trying to slow and block any meaningful policy changes that might slow the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It works hard to confuse the public about the veracity of climate science.

This year’s conference is centered on the theme of of “restoring the scientific method,” and will begin with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) who has described global warming as the the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” in 2003 and described it as “hysteria” in 2008.

Inhofe continues disputing the science, backing legislation that would strip the EPA of their authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and ignoring the extreme storms, flooding, droughts, and rising sea levels that the world has been experiencing.

The Heartland Institute website says the conference acknowledges the fact that claims of scientific certainty and predictions of climate catastrophes are based on “post-normal science,” which substitutes claims of consensus for the scientific method.

“This choice has had terrible consequences for science and society. Abandoning the scientific method led to the “Climategate” scandal and the errors and abuses of peer review by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change … “The scientists speaking at this conference, and the hundreds more who are expected to attend, are committed to restoring the scientific method. This means abandoning the failed hypothesis of man-made climate change, and using real science and sound economics to improve our understanding of the planet’s ever-changing climate.”

29 thoughts on “Global warming deniers to pow-wow in Washington”

Nice job you lab coat consultants but not surprising considering it was “scientists” who polluted and poisoned the planet in the first place with their cancer causing chemicals and toxic pesticides, and now the science of CO2 climate change has done to science what abusive priests did for respecting the Catholic Church. And climate change had turned into progressivism’s Iraq War of neocon-like lies and fear mongering.
History’s perception of climate change believers will be that of merchants of CO2 Death that marched and goose-stepped, holding a copy of An Inconvenient Truth in their hands and slapping their foreheads hard with it and all the while chanting: “All the scientists agree!” All the scientists agree!” All the scientists agree!” All the scientists agree!” All the scientists agree!” All the scientists agree!”………. to tax the air to make the weather colder?
Climate change was NOT about sustainability, it was a specific CO2 death threat to our children and thankfully, comfortable lie but still a criminal exaggeration in the end. False fear of unstoppable warming was never sustainable because real planet lovers are happy a crisis was averted, not disappointed.
I’m not the only one contacting authorities and law makers and the justice departments to have the leading SCIENTISTS charged for this needless panic of a false war called Climate Change that condemned billions to a DEATH BY CO2 for 25 years.

So you are saying you are not the only nutter? I don’t think so? Quite a few will go to this conference.
Why is it people like you in their comments ignore the science and focus on how unfair the tax is going to be. All I hear in your comment is “it’s my money, no one can have it, so all this AGW is not true.” You seem to work backwards, where as the science goes the other way. And as for all your mindless political rants… sorry they mean nothing anymore. This is way too far down the track for anyone with half a brain to listen to dribble like this. Answer me this…. why is it that not a single national science body in any country denies AGW? Not one. And don’t tell me it is all a leftist plot. That just does not stack up anymore.

These are guys we should believe. This is the greatest gathering of merchants of doubt. They have been successful in providing misinformation that sows a seed of doubt in minds like yours. As long as they can succeed in doing so, meaningful legislation cannot proceed.

Guess their campaign against tobacco regulation is not enough for these clowns. They need to support big oil at the expense of the welfare of the American public.

From Sourcewatch about the Heartland Institute:

Although Heartland calls itself “a genuinely independent source of research and commentary,” its has been a frequent ally of, and funded by, the tobacco industry

Roy E. Marden, a former member of Heartland’s board of directors, was until May 2003 the manager of industry affairs for the Philip Morris (PM) tobacco company, where his responsibilities included lobbying and “managing company responses to key public policy issues,”

Fuller’s monthly report for August 1993 noted that he had “leveraged numerous contacts in the public policy arena to generate positive publicity for PhillipMorris and/or a fair hearing on our issues, with particular reference to the misapplication of science by the EPA and the resulting poor public policy … and the policy arguments against the use of excise taxes to fund proposed health care reform.” The Heartland Institute was one of the contacts they had “leveraged,”

You say: “It works hard to confuse the public about the veracity of climate science.”

What’s confusing is your claim the world has been experiencing “extreme storms, flooding, droughts, and rising sea levels,” as though we’ve never had those events in the past.

Science says clearly that we have experienced those events, and always will. There’s no evidence of a rise in extreme storms, flooding or droughts, while tide gauges show sea level rise over the past few years is normal, and not accelerating.

Dude, you’re finished, you’re through, you have no credibility, your fallacies are nonsense, your words are worthless. You foolish deniers were done when the ground based observations of Earth’s albedo were corrected so that they agreed with the space based observations showing that the CO2 blanket was heating up the planet. You say there’s “no evidence” of a rise in extreme weather? Do you live in a diving bell? ALL the evidence points to global warming. You will never convince another foolish person again, ever.

“Your fallacies are nonsense.” Of course, everyone’s fallacies are nonsense. To ask whether I live in a diving bell is nonsense, too, when you might instead give some evidence of increasing extreme weather, which you assert. What is your evidence? Hurricanes are at an all-time low, but perhaps other storms, droughts?

You say “ALL the evidence” points to global warming. No, it doesn’t. If the world was warming, sea level rise would be accelerating, right? Well, it’s not. Recent research shows it’s been slowing down for 60 years. See this story in the Australian from two weeks ago: http://tinyurl.com/3hkl86e

I might be wrong in my conclusion that we’ve nothing to fear from dangerous man-made global warming, but your insults won’t convince me. You need to show evidence.

Hi Richard,http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
The evidence is all around you, but your ideological stance blinds you. You traipse around the Internet telling people to show evidence, but when they do, you only deny it. Why?
Cheers!

The next time climate scientists apply the ‘scientific method’ to climatology, it will be a first for climate science.
It’s a science still at the crawling stage of its life, yet to take its first baby steps, definitely not yet ready to advise policy makers.

I still don’t understand how this is even the right argument.
You can’t use all the resources and expect there to still be resources.
You can’t cover the planet in garbage & expect it to be clean and safe.
You can’t use and discard and abuse and expect it to sustain.
It’s illogical, Al Gore or not.

And that first poster’s comments seem more crazy-person-stream-of-consciousness rambling than any real “thought.”

Several aspects of the IPCC view of the poorly-specified theory of AGW are faulty and so I dissent from the orthodox view. But what money? Nobody feeds me money — I wish they did. You are clearly mistaken.

More money is spent by those supporting extremist views, who say the world is about to end, than any sceptics. For example, Greenpeace, WWF, NASA, the IPCC and governments around the world spend billions each year. Climate rationalists can’t compete with that. We rely only on reason, truth, perseverance and free-hearted service.

For the first time in history, people shouting “the end is nigh” are somehow the sane ones, while those of us who say it is not are now the lunatics. What strange times.

You seem to be implying is that Nasa is funded to support AGW. They are not. They are funded to research and find the truth and make recommendations. I am sure you would find that if the facts pointed in the other direction, they woud be saying so.

And it is not the first time in history, that sane logical well research organisations who know what they are talking about, have warning us there are implications for human behaviour. Nor is it the first time people have denied the elephant in the room. Your use of the term “End of the world” is your choice of words. You will not find them used anywhere by Nasa or the IPCC.

In addition, no one should ever doubt the power of money, as Summit Voice and Peter Mizla, a commenter on this blog, note. The Koch brothers and Exxon are feeding big money to the leading deniers, while most of the minions who don’t get a penny just go on clapping and shouting, unaware that someone is getting rich on the deal. Summit Voice, you’re right. If it weren’t so dangerous, it would be funny.

You’re imagining a conspiracy, fuelled by money you have no evidence for. I suspect you’re doing it deliberately to avoid noticing the reasonable questions, striking inconsistencies and scientific observations that sceptics bring to the table.

Have you noticed, for example, how global temperatures have not risen for about 15 years? But don’t take my word for it, look at the UAH graph for yourself: http://tinyurl.com/43w5823

The LA Times featured cold fusion in ’89 before its debunking.
Environmentalists were aghast!
“It’s like giving a machine gun to an idiot child.” – Paul Ehrlich
(mentor of John Cook of the SkepticalScience blog, author of “Climate
Change Denial”)
“Clean-burning, non-polluting, hydrogen-using bulldozers still could
knock down trees or build housing developments on farmland.” – Paul Ciotti (LA Times)
“It gives some people the false hope that there are no limits to
growth and no environmental price to be paid by having unlimited
sources of energy.” – Jeremy Rifkin (NY Times)
“Many people assume that cheaper, more abundant energy will mean that mankind is better off, but there is no evidence for that.” – Laura
Nader (sister of Ralph)

CLIMATEGATE 101: “For your eyes only…Don’t leave stuff lying around ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone….Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially﻿ from UEA so he can hide behin that.” – Phil “Hide The Decline” Jones to Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann

– exposed the doctored and cherry picked data
– demonstated the bogus science
– put up with being slandered and labelled as “deniers” as they would not submit to the “settled science”
– did not become intimidated as the leaders of the global warming movemement publicly called for their imprisonment

Deserve Nobel Peace Prizes for helping prevent the largest global fraud in the history of mankind.

Wow, sure is hot in Texas. I believe they are approaching a record number of days over 100. Guess that is not an extreme in weather. I love the Joel Pett cartoon. “What if it’s all a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing.” Climate deniers, give us the data to support your denial of the information we are fed by civil servants from NASA, NOAA, and other climate scientists that warn us that burning huge quantities of fossil fuel that has built up over millions of years in a matter of decades is bad for our health, and our planet’s health.

Yes, I enjoyed that cartoon. Oops, the world’s improved; sorry! That made me smile.

But you mention a record series of hot days and make the sarcastic comment that it can’t be extreme. Sceptics don’t say it’s not extreme, they say “prove we’re having more of them,” which is what the warmists are claiming. One weather event certainly doesn’t prove AGW.

You ask for data to support our “denial” of information that burning fossil fuel is bad for our and the planet’s health. Man, what a mixed-up question!

First, I’m not in favour of pollution, so please clean up your exhaust. Second, the specific gas you’re complaining of is carbon dioxide; you say it’s causing global warming. But CO2 is clear, odourless, non-toxic and absolutely vital to plants and animals. The productivitiy of the world’s plants has increased about 8% over the last 50 years because of the extra CO2 in the air.

Atmospheric levels of CO2 are the lowest they’ve been for about 300 million years. We could do with a lot more. Yes, there will be a little warming from the extra, but no more than about 1 degree over the next hundred years, according to the IPCC. The so-called feedback from increased water vapour is a non-event; it doesn’t happen.

“Bad for our health” you say. But that’s a huge climb-down from destroying the environment. James Hansen talks about “death trains” carrying coal and “saving the earth for our grandchildren.” Don’t you believe that? If not, we’re on the same side.

Finally, you’re the one saying the earth’s about to melt and the seas will rise 5 metres and drown all the cities. There’s no sign of it so far, so again I ask: “What’s the evidence?”

It’s not good enough to make some vague prediction of disaster then expect me to prove it’s not going to happen. The burden of proof is on you, for you’re making the forecast. Let’s hear it!

Wow, 1,000s of studies and reports all saying the same thing; the Earth is getting warmer, CO2 is causing it, the ice caps are melting, sea levels will rise … what more “proof” can anyone possibly offer?

Richard,
You stay up too late.
First of all the world is not improved. Our leaders in Washington will see to that. The rest of the world is concerned with the computer models that predict global warming, but we will have to wait and see as a society here in the US.
One weather event does not predict climate. You are right. It was wet and cool here so the world must be getting cooler, right? Yet at the same time the arctic was warmer than normal. There are many factors that influence climate. CO2 is proven in the laboratory to increase the reflection of radiation. We are seeing the highest concentrations in over 415,000 years. Charles Keeling started taking readings in 1958. Since then we have gone from 315 ppm to over 380 ppm.
Where do you find that we are at the lowest level in 300 million years? Can you state your sources? Would they be at this convention?

“Stay up too late”. lol. I’m in New Zealand, that’s what we do! Or, it’s an artefact of the time difference between us.

You make a sobering comment about our leaders; worldwide, there are many more interested only in their own comfort than want genuinely to improve the world.

Loss of Arctic sea ice is driven by winds and currents, you know that, right? It’s nothing to do with air temperature. There is warming, too, but again that’s driven by warmer air being blown there, not by being heated up by extra CO2.

Yes, CO2 has some radiative effects, no doubt about that. However, the climate being a chaotic, unpredictable mish-mash of known and unknown influences, we cannot rely on CO2’s effects on temperature dominating all others.

But a more accessible version of the graph is shown with a global temperature reconstruction by CR Scotese at geocraft.com (http://tinyurl.com/8o5dk). That one’s useful as it shows the ancient connection between CO2 and global temps — turns out to be none.